She looked nervous.
“What happened?”
“Mom and Dad were arguing.”
I became completely still.
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
Clara shook her head.
“But I remember Mom crying.”
The words hit me harder than I expected.
“My mother never cried in front of us.”
“I know.”
Clara looked at me.
“That’s why I remember.”
For years, I had tried to forget.
But now memories were returning.
Small moments.
Pieces I had ignored.
My mother packing a bag.
My father standing in the hallway.
The strange silence afterward.
The way everyone stopped asking questions.
“How did we never see it?” I whispered.
Clara reached for my hand.
“Because we trusted the people who were supposed to protect us.”
That afternoon, I made a decision.
I was going to find my mother.
Not because I needed her to fix my past.
Not because I expected everything to suddenly make sense.
